Crimson Sky

Addie

My dad places the black knife in my hand. A huge smile spreads across my face. All I wanted for my thirteenth birthday was a set of throwing knives, and my parents came through. 

“Your index, middle, and ring finger should be placed in the center of the handle.” My dad manipulates my fingers so they’re in the position he describes. “Your pinky can just kind of hang off the end of the handle while your thumb should be here on the opposite side.”

He nods in approval as I take a small step forward with my right foot, leaving my left leg anchored several inches behind. “Good stance. Yep, that’s perfect.”

I focus on the piece of plywood leaning against the tree about twelve feet away. My dad has spray-painted circles to form a target on the flat surface. 

He takes a step back to give me space to throw. I complete a quick mental checklist, remembering everything he taught me—hand position, stance, force, and focus on the target—and I let it fly. The knife circles through the air and hits the target with a sharp thud, sticking into the ring right outside the bull’s-eye. 

“Great!” My dad claps his hands together. “That was a great throw, Ad!”

“Thanks.” I tilt up on my toes, a wide smile on my face, before jogging toward the target to retrieve the knife. 

“You’re going to be a pro in no time,” he exclaims with a pat on my back.

“Obviously,” I tease. 

My brothers are on the other side of the yard tossing a football. My older brother, Auden, is helping my little brother, Kellan, learn to throw the ball. Kellan is starting peewee football this year, and it’s so cute seeing him fumble with the ball. Auden’s a starter on his JV team in high school and determined that Kellan will carry on his legacy in high school football someday.

It’s hard to know what Kellan will be like when he’s older, but at just five years old, I question whether football is in his future. Our little brother can build a Lego set designed for twelve-year-olds but looks completely awkward when tossing a ball. 

As if reading my mind, my dad chuckles, “He’ll get there. He’s so little, still.”

“Yeah,” I agree. 

Our big mastiff, Blue, drops a hefty stick at my feet. The two foster puppies we recently adopted, Bo and Tucker, are playing in the grass a few feet away. Well, Tucker’s rolling in it. Bo is eating it. 

“You want me to throw it?” I say to Blue.

He wags his tail, his tongue hanging from his mouth. 

I pick up the stick and toss it across the yard, in the opposite direction from where my brothers play. Blue, all a hundred and twenty pounds of him, charges for it. The puppies follow, always eager to follow in Blue’s footsteps but the both of them get distracted by grass, once again, before they reach Blue. Stick retrieved, Blue bounds back toward me, his jowls flapping in the wind.

“Good boy!” I exclaim, reaching out for the stick. Right when I’m about to grab it, Blue lunges to the side in his favorite game of keep away. He loves to chase sticks, but he still hasn’t learned to let them go. “Well, I can’t throw it again if you don’t drop it.”

He runs past me, thrashing his head back and forth, playing with the stick in his mouth.

“So dumb,” my dad scoffs.

“He is not,” I protest. “He’s so smart…smart enough to know he wants to hold his stick.”

My mother opens the kitchen window overlooking the backyard. “Din-ner…is ready…it is time to eat!” she sings to the tune of, “So long, farewell, auf Widersehen, good night,” from the Sound of Music. We watched it last night, and therefore, she will be humming and singing songs from it for at least a week. 

Mom loves to sing. She’s not good at it, but she doesn’t care. She also excels at communicating through song. I tell her it’s weird, but honestly, it’s funny. Unless she does it in front of my friends, then it’s not so funny. Multiple times, she’s sung loudly in front of my friends because she always says it’s important to be yourself. Her motto is that people will love you for who you are or they won’t but that you should never change your true self for someone else’s opinion. I get that, I do. But come on, Mom. 

“What’s for dinner?” Auden shouts.

“You will just have to find out,” she singsongs—still, to the same tune before closing the window. 

“Alright boys, let’s go,” Dad calls to my brothers and the three pups as he starts walking toward the house.

“I’m just going to throw it one more time. Maybe two,” I plead with a longing side glance at the target. 

“Okay, but don’t be long. I’m pretty sure she made veggie lasagna.” He looks back over his shoulder with a grin and raises a brow. He knows that my mom’s lasagna is one of my favorites. 

“I’ll be quick,” I promise, taking the knife's handle in my hand as instructed and square off with the target.

I run my thumb along the handle of the kitchen knife as tears roll down my cheeks. It’s vastly different from my knives at home, but the memory of learning to throw is strong. I can picture every detail—a snapshot of a moment in time. I remember Kellan’s little voice and the puppies’ cute grunts. I can hear the sound of my knife hitting the target and the off-pitch voice of my mother as she calls us in for dinner. I feel the pride within my chest at my father’s compliment. 

It was just a normal Sunday afternoon. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. But now…I’d give anything to go back. I’d give anything to see my family once more.

Anything.

The car lunges forward as Logan hits the brakes, bringing me back to the present. 

In the middle of the road, a zombie hobbles toward us. Its mouth opens and closes as it growls. 

“Hit it!” Nova shouts from the front seat. 

“No. It could get stuck under the car, then we’d be stranded here with all those at our back.” He references the herd of dead from my farm coming toward us. 

“Well, my window’s broken out. If it walks around this side and grabs me, it’s over.” The fear in Nova’s voice is palpable. “We have to hit it.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Logan warns, his tone insistent. “It could mess up the car. We need a vehicle.”

I run my finger across the blade of the knife and, without a second thought, open the back door. 

“What are you doing?” Brooklyn screams from beside me. She grabs my hand, but I pull away from her grip.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, emotionless, stepping out of the car. “Stay here, and make noise.”

The sound of the car door closes behind me as I run around the back of the car and off to the side. Sneaking around the tall oak trees lining the dirt road, I circle back until I’m past the front of the car and behind the creature ambling toward my friends. Stepping onto the gravel, I approach the dead from behind, my knife in hand. It’s reached the front of the car and is clawing the hood. 

It starts hobbling toward the passenger side of the car.

“Hurry up, Addie!” Nova shrieks, scooting over toward Logan. 

Inching forward, I’m less than an arm’s length away when the monster turns its head, its clouded beady eyes landing on me. 

Crap!

My mind is hazy with grief and indecision. I’ve acted erratically, and an overwhelming sense of dread engulfs me. The zombie is a tall male with long limbs. I’m wearing a T-shirt, the skin of my arms exposed, and that’s as good as a death sentence if he scratches me. He’ll be able to grab me before I can reach him with the knife. 

At this moment, I’m so disappointed with myself. My parents didn’t raise me to act irrationally. This can’t be my legacy. Remorse over the fact that this was preventable weighs heavy on my chest. It’s more encompassing than the fear of death itself. 

My family’s gone, but if they were here, I’m sure this choice wouldn’t have made them proud. 

The zombie’s eyes are milky white with faint purple veins. It smells rotten. The stench is so sour that it burns my nostrils. Bits of flesh hang from his mouth as he opens it wide, leaning in.

There’s no time. 

I jump when the car horn blares. The zombie turns its head toward the sound. The distraction buys me a couple of seconds, but that’s enough. I lean in with my right leg, like my dad taught me, and plunge the knife through the base of the dead man’s skull and into his brain.

He falls with a thud, denting the hood of the car with his weight. 

Pulling my knife from his skull, I whip my arm to the side to discard any zombie brain matter from the blade and run to the back door of the car. Flinging it open, I jump in. 

Teagan is turned around in the seat, looking out the back window. “More are coming!”

Brooklyn twists in the seat. “Go! Logan!”

Logan puts the car in reverse until the zombie slides off the hood and drops to the graveled road. He shifts the car into drive and swerves around the fallen dead. 

I look over at Hugo. His sweet innocence reminds me so much of my brother, Kellan. “It’s going to be okay,” I speak false promises. 

He nods, giving me a faux grin. 

Logan picks up speed. “That wasn’t cool, Addie!” His big blue eyes glare into the rearview mirror.

I guess I can cross seeing Logan mad off my list of firsts. And today was definitely a day of firsts. It was the first time I realized that my entire family was gone. 

“Really stupid,” Nova grumbles.

“I know it was. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” I admit. 

“Cut her some slack. You all saw her house, right?” Brooklyn sticks up for me.

“Yeah, and it sucked. But losing Addie minutes after the fact would’ve sucked more,” he says to Brooklyn before directing his words to me. “You can’t make stupid decisions like that. Look around us. Everyone’s dead! It’s so easy to die—to become one of them. It happens in an instant. You have to be smart all the time.” 

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I repeat.

Logan doesn’t say anything else, but the tension from the past few minutes is still evident in his tight facial features. 

The near-death encounter with the dead man has shaken me from my cloud of grief. I’m not over what I saw of my home, of course. I’ve barely begun to process the gravity of that loss. But if we’re going to survive, I’ll need to compartmentalize my sorrow. Now is not the time or place to have a pity party. We need to get to safety. 

I lost myself for a moment, but it won’t happen again. I’m a fighter. My parents have raised me to be strong, and for them, I will be. The horizon appears to be a never-ending gray—a world with so much fear, death, and heartache. Yet somewhere in the cracks of the desolation surrounding us, there’s bound to be light. I’ll find it, the faint glow amidst the darkness, and I’ll hold on tight. 

Logan continues to drive, and I take note of our surroundings. We’ve outrun the dead chasing us. They’re no longer in view, and it’s a small relief. We’re speeding down a road I know well.

Leaning toward the front seat, I point at a spot on the horizon. “See that mailbox in the shape of a barn?” 

“Yeah,” Logan answers.

“Pull in there,” I instruct.

Logan nods and slows the car as we get closer to the unique mailbox I’ve seen hundreds of times. He turns the car into the drive. 

The tan two-story house comes into view at the end of the long driveway. Contrary to my home, this one seems to be void of the dead, and I’m relieved.

A tall woman steps onto the front porch. She raises the shotgun in her grasp and aims it directly at us.